Study Desk

My son, to my wisdom, attend, and, to mine understanding, incline thou thine ear:

That thou mayest preserve discretion, - and, as for knowledge, that thy lips may guard it.

For, with sweet droppings, drip the lips of her that is a stranger, and, smoother than oil, is her mouth;

But, the latter end of her, is bitter as wormwood, sharp, as a two-edged sword!

Her feet, are going down to death, - on hades, will her steps take firm hold.

Lest, the path of life, she should ponder, her tracks have wandered she knoweth not whither .

Now, therefore, ye sons, hearken unto me, and do not turn away from the sayings of my mouth.

Keep far from her thy way, and do not go near the opening of her house:

Lest thou give, to other men, thy vigour, and thy years, to him that is cruel:

Lest strange men, be well fed, by thy strength, and, thy toils, be in the house of the alien.

So shalt thou grieve in thy latter end, in the failing of thy flesh and of thy healthy condition;

And thou shalt say - How I hated correction! and, reproof, my heart disdained;

Neither hearkened I to the voice of my teachers, nor, to my instructors, inclined I mine ear:

Soon was I in all evil, in the midst of convocation and assembly.

Drink thou water out of thine own cistern, and flowing streams out of the midst of thine own well.

Let not thy fountains, flow over, abroad, in the streets, dividings of waters:

Let them be for thyself, alone, and not for strangers with thee.

Let thy well-spring be blessed, - and get thy joy from the wife of thy youth: -

A loving hind! a graceful doe! let, her bosom, content thee at all times, and, in her love, mayst thou stray evermore.

Wherefore, then, shouldst thou stray, my son, with a strange woman? or embrace the bosom of a woman unknown?

For, before the eyes of Yahweh, are the ways of a man, - and, all his tracks, doth he consider:

His own iniquities, shall entrap him with the lawless, and, by the cords of his own sin, shall he be seized.

He, shall die, for lack of discipline, and, by the abounding of his perversity, shall he be lost.